continued silence
by thefourteenthdarkone
Summary: Angel doesn't like to talk about her sister, it's a good thing Cobra doesn't need her to say a word.


**i've been trying to write something involving my angel/cobra brotp and yukino for a while now, and it ended up in this form. hopefully i'll convert more people to join me on this wonderful broship.**

Angel glared at the pages of _Sorcerer Weekly_ , ignoring her guild's shenanigans in the background. From what she could hear, Hoteye had, _once again_ , decided that Crime Sorciere's cloaks would look better with sparkles somewhere, this time professing that they should sew pink lace onto the hoods of the navy blue cloaks. As per usual, Meredy was 100% in favor, Midnight had vanished (with his cloak) along with Racer, Jellal was attempting to be the voice of reason, and Cobra had written a twelve-page long essay complemented by statistics and a PowerPoint presentation detailing how pink lace would negatively affect their operation. Angel herself was currently involved in not caring. Which she was very good at (or so she liked to think).

The next page made her scowl more, enough that she saw Meredy shriek and jump away in the background from the dark aura Angel was giving off. Splayed across the glossy magazine page was a young woman with short silver hair, a feathery cloak rippling around her, and posing next to another woman, this one with shiny black hair and a blue dress with a high slit on the leg.

The headline read _Sabertooth's Hottest New Team: The Strongest Ladies in Sabertooth Double Up!_ Apparently, Yukino Aguria and Minerva Orlando had teamed up for a few jobs and the magazine had seized the opportunity to interview the two about their budding friendship, as it was apt to do. Better than its usual articles featuring Yukino, at least - the last two had involved the dramatic (and definitely nonexistent) love triangle between Sting, Rogue, and Yukino. Love _angle_ , rather, unless Rogue/Sting had a crush on the other, which honestly wouldn't surprise her that much. Either way, Yukino was definitely not involved.

 _She better not be involved_ , Angel thought to herself, flipping to the second page of the article. A photo of a grinning Yukino with her arms wrapped around a smiling Minerva's neck stared up at her from the page. Angel glared back resentfully, and it was that last outburst of loud, emotionally-charged thoughts that finally tore Cobra away from his PowerPoints and over to her, leaving Jellal to deal with Hoteye, Meredy, and their sparkly demands.

"You know, you don't have to read the thing," he drawled, dropping the the ground next to her. Angel ignored him as she often did, knowing he would just read her mind and respond to the probable insults and threats accordingly.

"Hey, it's not _my_ fault that you're too chicken to go see the kid in person," Cobra protested the unsaid insults. "I mean, no wonder you've got all these feathers," he added, darting a hand over to pull one off her skirt, causing her to punch him in the arm. "It's symbolism. They're even white."

"Chickens are brown, idiot," Angel told him, her eyes never leaving the magazine page.

"No, that's roosters," Cobra informed her patronizingly, earning himself another punch he didn't bother to dodge.

"I don't care."

"Oh, so when you're wrong you suddenly don't care?" he smirked, easily gleaning from her thoughts that he was right. Of course, this was the usual scenario when Cobra interrupted her reading of every single issue of Sorcerer Weekly that featured Yukino in any way, but Angel seemed much more irritated then usual, and he was pretty sure that part wasn't Hoteye's fault.

(From what he could hear, Jellal was citing Cobra's essay, which proved he was desperate. Meredy must have had candy or something. Probably Midnight's fault, he never paid attention while on Meredy-SugarWatch.)

"May I?"

"No."

Cobra deftly snatched the magazine out of her hands, which she bore barely any resistance to. Turning the pages over, it was immediately evident what was causing Angel's air of annoyance. "Wow, really, Angel? Jealous?"

She didn't bother protesting.

"You know, there's this thing called friends. You are, for some reason, one of my friends," Cobra said, the slightly patronizing tone returning (she was going to stab him with a key any second now). "Your lovely sister here has a friend, and they do stuff together. That's how friendship works."

"I know that. Shut up," Angel scowled. He just didn't get- no, scratch that, he totally got it, he was just being the asshole he was apparently put on this earth to be, and it was obvious from his expression that he was just trying to get to her. Angel wasn't jealous. No, jealous wasn't the right word at all - she was just resentful. And of a former member of Tartaros, no less. How pathetic.

She must have been scowling more fiercely than she thought, for the next words out of Jellal's mouth (or what she assumed they were based on his usual admonishment; Meredy was trying to stuff cotton candy in his mouth) were: "If you two are going to fight about chicken colors or whatever you're arguing about this time, go do it somewhere else!"

Cobra shrugged and lazily rose to his feet, Angel following in suit as they headed in the direction of the town. Jellal pointed in the other direction. "You are not blowing up another bar."

Both sighed loudly and instead vanished into the dense forest, leaving Jellal to deal with Hoteye's plans to open a cloak store co-operated by Meredy. If there wasn't a crater by the end of the "discussion", Cobra owed Midnight ten jewels, and he doubted he would have to pay up.

They walked quietly for several minutes before Cobra broke the silence. "So is there a specific reason we're headed in the direction of Sabertooth or….?"

Angel muttered something to herself that Cobra determined to be an insult and switched directions entirely, ending up in a dark part of the woods illuminated by small rays of sunlight, peeking through gaps in the trees. Deciding that this was fine, she lowered herself to rest against a large trunk, legs crossed and and pulled up by her arms, hiding most of her face. Cobra let her be for a few minutes before commenting, "So if we were in a romance novel, this is where you'd start crying and open up to me about your deepest secrets, and I'd give you a hug and possibly a forehead touch if we're really scandalous, and we'd have a moment."

His words almost elicited a laugh from Angel. "You know my deepest secrets anyway, and the day I cry is the day the world ends."

There were tears welling up in her eyes, so Cobra made a point of taking serious glances at the sky for deadly meteors or angry gods. There was one glowing meteor surrounded by dark clouds, but nothing else. "Midnight owes me." he murmured under his breath. He was still holding the offending magazine, and Angel cast another glare at it.

"So, how's the jealousy?"

" _Resentment_."

"Right, resentment," Cobra corrected himself, rolling his eyes. Surprisingly, Angel looked as if she was actually about to answer his question, but decided against it and stared at the ground instead. Cobra huffed shortly and pursed his lips, which Angel took that as a sign of him switching to invading the privacy of her mind.

"What is it this time? Wait, don't tell me. I'm going to go with a feeling of inadequacy," he declared, nodding to himself. She looked very tempted to throw her shoe at him, but settled for softly snorting and saying, "Hypocrite."

Cobra shrugged in acknowledgement of the accusation, as it was true. He hadn't looked for Kinana. But at least he didn't know _exactly_ where to find her. "And?"

Angel had no retort, and Cobra let out a long-suffering sigh before sliding down to rest against the tree she was curled up against, stuffing his hands in his pockets. If there was one thing he knew about Angel from the many years they spent together, it was that eventually she'd talk. She just needed time. Cobra knew that he couldn't read her thoughts this time around; she needed to speak for herself.

It took nearly twenty long, silent minutes for her to do so.

"All Yukino's probably heard of me is legends; legends of the terror of the wicked Oracion Seis and their evil mages who staged a prison break and are now probably somewhere planning terribly evil deeds, because obviously the Council can't go out and say they released us for your information," Angel said, still looking at the ground instead of Cobra. "She's a top-ranked mage in a powerful guild. I'm sure she's seen pictures of me as part of the Oracion Seis. And last time I checked, only Erza knew we were with Crime Sorciere now…if I went to visit her, she'd probably attack me," she added with a self-depreciating laugh. "Yukino's so kind and sweet…I can't imagine she'd want to associate with me if I went to find her, or even believe I'm her sister."

She hadn't verbalized her worst fear, and Cobra didn't expect her to. He could hear it, though, weighing on her mind - a fear that yes, Yukino _had_ seen pictures, yes, Yukino _had_ recognized her, and yes, Yukino had written her off as evil and unworthy of contacting.

He paused, holding in his first and most likely not situation-appropriate thoughts. He was not very good at comforting people and never had been, even if he could listen to their every conscious and subconscious thought and use those to address the issue. In fact, he ventured that that power made things worse - when one could hear people's every insecurity, it was hard to isolate just one and make sure it was the one they were talking about. Not to mention that being in a dark guild for the majority of one's life was not very good for developing the people skills necessary to deal with anything outside of coordinating to kill. Still, Angel was part of the closest thing he'd ever had to a family - he had no choice but to try.

"Look, Sorano, as far as I know, these days Sabertooth's a regular Fairy Tail." At the use of her real name, she jerked her head slightly (after four months the former Oracion Seis members still didn't use them that often, even if Jellal and Meredy did - years of conditioning was hard to overcome), but other then that didn't react. "You know, with the whole nakama-power-will-save-us-all and spirit of forgiveness thing? Not to mention that Yukino completely forgave a guild that made her strip, remove her own guildmark, and kicked her out for losing _once_ , and to _Kagura Mikazuchi_. I have trouble believing she'd completely write you off."

Angel was unconvinced, if her thoughts and expression were any indication.

"Even if she did write you off, who cares? You just track her down outside of Sabertooth and talk to her, and explain that you're firmly on the light side now. That's what I'd do, at any rate. Probably more eloquently then you." he tacked on, watching for her reaction. Angel stirred slightly, two fingers pulling another feather off her dress and staring at it. She was probably remembering something, Cobra thought.

"Really?" she asked, finally looking up at him. It was in more fragile a tone than Cobra could remember her using in a while, maybe even not since they were little and she would quietly ask him, in the middle of the night, whether someone like her could ever really be an angel.

"Yeah." he replied, without a hint of snark this time. Waiting a few seconds, Cobra added in a lighter tone, "Hey, if she can forgive Miss Tartaros here, I can't see her not forgiving you. You're probably nicer. You are her real family, after all…and the two of us should definitely know how important family is, eh?"

Angel sat in silence for a few seconds, turning the feather over in her fingers, before a small smile crossed her face. "You should be a therapist, Erik. You'd probably be good at it." She pushed herself up from the ground and stretched her arms above her head as he chuckled.

"I'm already Midnight's sleep therapist. And Meredy's (unwilling) fellow love consultant. And Jellal and Erza's unofficial couple counselor. Not that they need one, they're so ridiculously in love."

"But they aren't a couple, right?" Angel asked, with a complete tone of innocence. There was a pause of approximately five seconds before both burst into laughter, all seriousness gone as she turned to head back, Cobra following.

As they neared the significantly quieter clearing (which now smelled like smoke and burnt sugar) where the rest of Crime Sorciere was, Angel glanced at him.

"Seriously though, thanks."

"Anytime."

 **are you converted? if so (or if not, that's cool too), please review, i'd love to hear your thoughts!**


End file.
